


Five Times Sinner

by bendingwind



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-08
Updated: 2012-05-08
Packaged: 2017-11-05 00:50:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/400077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendingwind/pseuds/bendingwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five Avengers Clint Barton was ordered to kill, and the one he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Sinner

Clint tries not to remember the time before the circus and prison and a very brief stint in Boot Camp, because it’s mostly fear and bruises and the sick sweet stench of alcohol on his father’s breath, and Barney whispering hushed words of comfort even as he pinches Clint, hard. He has only a faint ghost of a memory of his mama’s soft cool hand on his forehead and good food, and learning in bible school that he wasn’t supposed to kill, ‘cause God said so. Maybe that sticks with him, he doesn’t know, but later he’ll look at people and weigh their lives against the lives they might take, and sometimes he shoots to kill, and sometimes he shoots to miss.

1

He’s twenty-one and idealistic and brand spankin’ new to the CIA when he gets the mission order: kill Tony Stark. He doesn’t know a damn thing about the guy except that he’s got a really badass car and a really hot girlfriend.

Clint watches him for a week before he shoots.

On the first day, he learns that the chick isn’t so much Stark’s girlfriend as a one-time fuck, and that Stark has no idea what her name even is. The car’s still pretty badass, though, and the lady Stark picks up for round two after the party is even hotter than the one he came with.

The second day, he learns that the ventilation system in the old Stark Mansion is both crazy insecure and suspiciously modern for a building erected in the early thirties. He also witnesses first-hand the single most ruthless morning-after ejection he’s seen in his life, and reinforces his gratitude that he isn’t an engineer. He’d rather die than sit over a draft table for that many hours.

Stark works through the night and into the evening of the third day. Somewhere in there, Clint stops popping stim pills and lets his handler watch for a while so he can nap. He wakes in time to witness Stark stumble up from his lab, dismiss the ailing old butler, and do himself up with a really hot batch of black tar. Must be good to be rich. Stark falls asleep there on the couch, needle dropped carelessly on the floor.

Day four Stark poisons himself with alcohol and the acrid air of a club instead of another hit. Clint lurks in the rafters and watches him dance for hours and then slip away, alone, and go back to sleep in the soiled cot in the corner of his empty lab.

On the fifth day, Clint admits to himself that Stark is petrifyingly lonely. His handler tells him that the order should come in at any time, and for the first time Clint replies, “They better hurry, I’m starting to root for this guy.”

On the sixth day, Clint opens the debriefing file on a case for the first time, and he reads about why the government wants him to kill Tony Stark. It’s like reading the summary of a comic book or something; secret weapons, classified research, paranoia that Stark may (or may have already) gained access to it, and the desire to ensure that he doesn’t, no matter the cost. Clint’s well-versed in debt and punishment and vengeance, and he’s always seen best from a distance. _Thou shalt not kill,_ and Stark doesn’t do what he does in order to kill, and he doesn’t deserve to die for the crimes of his father. Clint can and has and will kill the guilty without guilt; he will not shoot down the unarmed innocent.

On the seventh day, the order comes, and Clint’s explosive arrow misses by three feet. Somehow he accidentally drops his quiver on the floor and can’t get a second shot off before Stark’s whisked away into protective custody. Stark emerges a day later in the middle of a protection detail that would make the president envious, and Clint’s called off mission.

The CIA tries to bury him. SHIELD picks him up.

2

It takes him eleven days after his handler shoves a file at him to track down the Black Widow. She’s easy enough to follow—just find the next body along the road—but she’s tricky as hell to catch. He finally trails her into a gentlemen’s club and watches her move from patron to patron, catching eyes that might notice her pistol with her breasts instead, brushing a thigh here and a shoulder there to distract from the way her eyes search the club for her next target.

She’s good, he’ll give her that; he doesn’t even notice when she pins the mark. One moment she’s still moving through the crowd, and the next she’s leading a balding old man to a back room by the hand. Clint slips after her, nodding and flirting and drawing attention from the bow wedged between his briefcase and his torso. He’s got the access points mapped out in his head already, so it’s easy enough to slip into an employee’s only zone and onto the roof, and then to locate the massive glass sunroof above the room where she’s taken her victim. One of the panels is already cracked open, and he surveys the area quickly, sure it has to be a trap.

Apparently he’s just lucky, or maybe she’s very unlucky, because it turns out to be genuine coincidence. She’s already got the guy in a chair, and she’s tying his hands behind it. Dude has a seriously bad mustache.

She sashays back around the chair and stands in front of the man. Clint roughly translates her Russian as, “You kinky bastards are easy as fuck to capture.”

He thinks the way she phrased it was probably more eloquent, but her target stares at her, uncomprehending.

“Why not with the dance, I paid you for the dance,” the man half-whimpers, and she bends over.

“Oh, you’ll get a dance.”

“You are wearing too many clothes.” The man sounds sullen, and Clint fights back the urge to chuckle. They don’t know a lot about her abilities; maybe she has super-hearing or some shit.

“This isn’t the kind of dance that I like to do naked, though that can be arranged, for the right price.”

The man replies with something Clint can’t quite make out enough to translate, but he thinks he asks what sort of dance she means. He maybe sounds like he’s becoming frightened now, and Clint almost feels sorry for him. It must be difficult to live with that much stupidity.

Clint can’t see her face from his perch, but he bets she’s grinning nastily from the way her voice sounds when she replies, “It’s real simple, old man. I’ve got a ledger. Your name’s in it. You’re pretty lucky, because they didn’t pay me to make it slow.”

She plants a stiletto’d foot on the chair, between the man’s legs, and lifts her skirt. There’s a fucking massive knife tucked in her garter, which shouldn’t be so sexy for such a b-movie cliché. 

Her dress shifts, and on the back of her neck he can make out the mark of the Red Room, where they took little girls and fashioned them into mindless weapons. He’d hunted down and killed half a dozen of her less-talented sisters before he worked with a seventh, and finally learned just what it meant to those girls, to have had their minds cracked open and raped and broken, and then put back together so that they could and would kill without conscience. He knows that they can be good, and he will not kill the best of their fallen daughters if he can instead help her piece herself back together.

Clint switches his arrow out for a tranq dart just in time to shoot her in the neck before she can slit the dude’s throat. She tosses something at him without even looking and then the ceiling’s collapsing. He lands pretty good, all things considered, but he doesn’t even get a second before she’s on him. She lands a kick that probably breaks his jaw before her movements start to slow and, finally, she collapses.

He carries her back to base camp on a badly sprained ankle. His handler is livid. Director Fury, when they call him, is tolerantly amused.

When his ankle and his jaw heal up and they put him back on active duty, they shove him in a room with Director Fury, who says, “Meet Agent Coulson and Agent Romanov. Congratulations, Barton: you found her, now you get to keep her. Coulson will handle the two of your damn fool asses, and don’t you think he’ll let you put a single foot outta line.”

Natasha’s pretty willing to kill whatever they point her at, even if she can’t quite grasp the morals of it yet, and Coulson looks like a paper pusher and can kill a man with a sack of flour. Clint witnesses it firsthand.

Things work out okay.

3

It’s not the first time SHIELD has sent their team to take out something that can’t be killed.

It is the first time Clint manages to talk Nat and Coulson into a bar beforehand with the excuse that it’s “for the purpose of killing time, sir, and also I bet Nat does a mean karaoke when she’s drunk.” It’s not a bet; he’s seen her do it. Natasha and Clint race each other to see who can pick the drinks that will get them smashed in the shortest period of time while Coulson subtly interrogates half the bar in some language Clint doesn’t recognize. They make it back to the hut where they’re staying at some point, because he wakes up there the next morning, tangled up in the blankets with Natasha but still clothed.

He winces. The first time he and Natasha made out in front of Coulson just to annoy him was at least intentional. Normally they try to keep their relationship more off-radar.

“He’s been here without incident for three months, helping the local population who lack access to modern medicine,” Coulson says from _way too close,_ and he jumps.

_“Jesus.”_

“I’ve radioed back to inform Director Fury that I don’t believe any action here is necessary. I expect an extraction team to be sent within the hour; you and Natasha had better hit the beach if you’re going to go at all.”

Clint grins sheepishly at him, because that may or may not have been one of his plans for playing hooky, and he shuffles out of Natasha’s embrace to leave the hut and make for the woods.

It takes him a minute to realize that the swarm of army tanks outside is not, in fact, a drunken hallucination.

“Uh, Coulson—” he begins, just in time to be interrupted by a haunting roar. Both Coulson and Natasha are by his side in seconds.

“Is that what I think it is?” Natasha asks darkly.

“It matches available sound clips,” Coulson agrees, and the three of them take off for the jeep. They reach the Hulk in time to watch him smash two tanks, and then they’re all out of the car and Natasha’s eyes are darting around for weak points, Clint’s screwing explosive heads onto his arrows and Coulson’s rooting around in the trunk for his favorite rocket launcher. It probably won’t do any more good than the dozen others that the army’s got trained on the Hulk, but it might be worth a try.

They don’t manage to do much more than irritate him, but they slowly drive him away from the major settlements in the area, and the three of them agree that that will have to be enough with the army so very present. Sometime late in the morning, when Clint has passed from tiredness into exhaustion, the Hulk rips a tree out of the ground and sends it swinging. It takes a moment for Clint to recognize it as Natasha’s last reported post, and then she’s flying through the air, her red hair glinting in the sunlight. It catches the Hulk’s attention. Its huge green fist shoots out and Natasha disappears.

For a moment, Clint forgets how to breathe, and then the Hulk drops her to the ground. For a moment it stands over her, looking almost… startled… and then it jerks back, turns, and runs in the opposite direction.

Clint’s got a ledger, too, and that thing should have killed Nat. It let her live, so he’ll let it live.

“—have the anti-gamma arrowhead on you Agent Barton, I repeat, are you in possession of the anti-gamma arrowhead? You are ordered to shoot at once,” buzzes in his ear, some army asshole.

He pushes the button to speak. “Naw, sir, I think this one’s under control. Looks like he’s retreating. I’m gonna go out there and pick up whatever’s left of my partner, if that’s all the same to you.”

“I gave you an order—” the army asshole begins to shout, before Coulson’s smooth voice cuts across the line.

“That won’t be necessary, Colonel,” he says, “Doctor Banner has been declared in retreat and a ceasefire has been issued. You may start collecting your injured, if you wish. Agent Barton, please meet me at Agent Romanov’s last known location. A medivac team should arrive any second now. We will be leaving with her.”

Clint doesn’t need to be told twice.

4

He’s avoiding a random downpour in the middle of the fucking desert by hiding in the weapons van, an iPod he stole from the evidence truck plugged into one ear, when Phil’s voice buzzes in his ear. “I need eyes up high, with a gun.”

Coulson’s voice then, not _Phil,_ and he goes for the gun before he decides that he wants to mess around a little and grabs his bow instead. He’s got better aim in this kind of weather with a projectile weapon, anyway. He hooks his quiver over his shoulder, followed by his bow, and rushes out into the pouring rain. The lift is close by, and he’s in the air in seconds. Coulson’s got his routine down to a science, because just as he gets a sight on the perp, he hears, “Barton, talk to me,” through his earpiece.

Below, he watches the shadows of the perp taking out two trained guards like he’s knocking over tiny tin soldiers.

“You want me to slow him down, sir, or are you sending more guys in for him to beat up?”

“I’ll let you know,” Coulson replies, and Clint wonders why he’s the only one who seems to notice that particular little laugh in Coulson’s voice. Phil’s really bad at hiding how hilarious he thinks it is when Clint’s being kind of a smartass. He watches the perp take out Ozzy, who is seriously a _big fucking dude,_ and watches as he stumbles towards the artifact.

“You better call it, Coulson, ‘cause I’m starting to root for this guy.”

Coulson-slash-Phil likes it better when Clint at least gives him some warning that he’s about to go rogue on a mission. Clint does try to give him a heads up when he can.

Coulson doesn’t respond, and the big guy rips his way into the tent with the artifact.

“Last chance, sir.”

“Wait, I want to see this,” Coulson interrupts him, and he sounds curious, so Clint lets it go. The man reaches forward and grasps the handle of the artifact, tugs…

Nothing happens, just like with everyone else who tried. Not The Rightful King after all, then, or whatever that mythological thing was. Natasha’s fond of stories.

Later, after a round of interrogations and releasing the prisoner under an extremely poor fake ID and a pathetically flimsy excuse, he catches up to Phil.

“You didn’t join the team trailing our favorite Norse god?” Clint asks, leaning against one of the cars.

“I’ve got too many things to do here,” Coulson answers, without looking at him.

“Want to grab coffee with me?” Clint presses on.

Phil looks up at him, and smiles. “Maybe later.”

Hey, Clint’s not stupid, he’ll take what he can get.

5

Obviously no one orders him to kill Captain America, but Clint’s prepared to if it’s necessary. Super soldiers are one of those Really Bad Ideas that never seem to die out and _always_ end in catastrophe, and Clint’s long since learned not to trust government propaganda. He figures it’s just as likely they had some pretty boy playing nice for the crowds while the batshit, pumped up super soldier wreaked havoc in Europe.

He doesn’t really fancy that same super soldier loose on the streets of New York, so when the code thirteen echoes through the base, he’s up and in his perch in seconds, his sights locked on the big blonde who actually does look just like his propaganda posters.

When the cars swarm up around him and Fury marches out, all badass and kind of annoying, the super soldier doesn’t bolt or rage or even really panic. He just stares at the streets around him, uncomprehending, and for a moment Clint can see his eyes.

He looks horribly, terribly, heartrendingly lost. Clint won’t be killing anyone today.

He throws his bow back over his shoulder and makes his way down into base. Phil’s down there somewhere, and he wants to tell him that Captain America’s the genuine article after all, apologize for maybe yelling a little because he was jealous of his boyfriend spending so much time watching another man sleep, and hopefully talk him into breaking the No Office Sex rule in order to do a little making up.

“No,” Phil says, as he slips into the office.

Clint tries for innocent. “What?”

“No, we are not having makeup sex in my office. I’m glad you finally see that my appreciation of Captain America is not unreasonable.”

“He does have a nice ass,” Clint agrees, amiably. “Maybe I’ll leave you for him.”

“I’d understand completely,” Phil replies, straight-faced and solemn, “but I’m afraid you’re going to have to fight me for it.”

Clint laughs aloud, and bends down to press a kiss to his lover’s lips.

\- 1

Clint doesn’t keep count of the bodies he’s put in the morgue. It’s really messed up and way more arrogant than he wants the world to know he is, so he doesn’t keep count, he just visits every body he’s put away, once the clothes are off and the world is washed away.

They all look eerily similar in death.

Shut eyes, slack jaws, pale bruising skin and blue-tinted lips. SHIELD shaves their hair to check for bugs, mutations, technological enhancements, anything that may or may have affected the success of the mission. 

Phil Coulson lies there with eyes shut, a slack jaw, pale bruising skin and blue-tinted lips. He’s been shaved and cleaned and the hole in his heart has been sewn together with the hideous, sloppy stitches of a coroner. Nobody ever looks like they’re sleeping in the morgue.

Clint reaches out as if in a dream, and brushes his fingers across Phil’s bluish lips.

He doesn’t remember betraying the information or giving the orders that led the two of them here, one laid out on a frigid metal table, one sitting by his side, and he _hates_ himself for that more than he’s ever hated another human being in his life.

“Hey,” he says, very quietly. “So, I know I went a little bit rogue on this mission and I’m sure you’re gonna give me hell in the--” his voice breaks, and he draws in a deep breath. “I know you’re gonna give me in hell in the debriefing, but I just wanted to let you know, I’m alive and sane again and... I love you, okay?”

Phil’s lips don’t move and his voice doesn’t answer, but Clint learned long ago that denial doesn’t help anyone, and he didn’t expect a reply.

“Nat’s gonna kill me when she finds out I was down here, but she knows my rules. I always sit with the body of the person I’ve killed.”

His hands tremble as he wraps them around Phil’s stiff fingers.

“I’m... I never told you this, but my mama sent me to bible school, and I know it’s stupid for someone like me to hope for a heaven, but I hope you’re there, okay? You deserve it. You were too good for me and I knew it, and... and I killed you, okay? Your name’s on my books. I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for it, for that one name, and I hope you’d be proud of me. I’m gonna be a genuine hero, just like Captain America, and nobody’s gonna know who and what I really am except you. You keep that secret for me, alright? I’ll be up there to collect it someday.”

On the table, Phil remains stiff and silent until Clint stands and leaves the room.

The funeral’s on a Monday, and the sun shines all the day long.

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, I am 100% on the Coulson Lives train. He probably shows up a week later to explain that it was an LMD and everyone cries and then lives happily ever after.


End file.
